Saturday night succession, who is the rightful heir to Lorne Michaels’ throne?

In 2001, “Saturday Night Live” hired one of its most beloved cast members of all time, they also hired Seth Meyers. 

A year later, I was born, and now, at 21, I am here to make an official argument for why Meyers is the right person to take over Lorne Michaels’s position at “SNL,” whenever he steps down. 

There aren’t official announcements about retirement, but two things are clear. Michaels has said, “50 is a good number,” noting he will see his job through for at least one more season and feels that could be a good stopping point. 

He has also said he wants “SNL” to continue when he leaves. 

Season 50 would start next year after the sketch show got a late start to its 49th season earlier due to the Writer’s Guild of America strike, which was resolved Sept. 27.

That raises the question of who is the right person to take over Michaels’s position as showrunner of “SNL.”

It’s a dangerous job to take over; in “SNL’s” 49 seasons, Michaels has only not been present for five, arguably their five worst. Michael’s stepping down would rid “SNL” of one of its few common denominators in its entirety. 

Michaels’s started as a 30-year-old hired to create a show so NBC didn’t have to air Johny Carson reruns on Saturday nights. He is now one of the most influential people in comedy.

As the creator, showrunner and executive producer, Michaels essentially has unlimited power at “SNL.” Whoever takes over his job will become the show’s essence, which makes the list of suitable successors relatively short. 

There are good suggestions, like former head writers Tina Fey and Colin Jost. Longtime “SNL” producer Steve Higgins or former “SNL” and current “Late Night” producer Michael Shoemaker are logical picks as well.

Rumors that Fey was being courted for the position ran rampant but were shut down by an NBC executive earlier this year. 

Many big names have suitable qualifications to become the new Lorne Michaels. 

However, Meyers’s unique career at “SNL” made him the perfect alumnus to take over as captain of studio 8H, whether he wants to admit it or not.

Meyers was hired alongside the exceptional Amy Poehler, and the two had quite different starts. While Poehler was an immediate superstar, Meyers struggled and learned he preferred writing for other cast members rather than himself. 

After a promotion to writing supervisor in 2005, Meyers became both a “Weekend Update” anchor and the show’s head writer in 2006, positions he would continue until he left “SNL” in 2014 to take over hosting “Late Night.” 

Meyer’s is now one of the few bright spots in the declining medium: late-night talk shows. 

His segment “A Closer Look” has been a success since the start of his run, and he’s consistently been praised for his interviewing skills and ability to make his guests comfortable.

He hit his stride during the pandemic, six years into Meyers’s “Late Night” run. 

He fed into internet culture with his Emmy-nominated segment “CORRECTIONS” and ditched the suit to give his show a more laid-back and charismatic energy. Meyers’s renovation of his show resulted in its first nomination for the best variety talk show at the 2022 Emmys, eight years after it started. 

Of course, the new and authentic makeover Meyers gave his show is a good argument to have him take over at “SNL,” a show struggling to capture a young audience. 

But what I think sets Meyers apart from other potential hires is his unusual “SNL” career and his evident love for comedy and writers. 

During the WGA strike, Meyers paid his staff out of pocket. While his fellow NBC host Jimmy Fallon eventually did the same, there was never any doubt that Meyers would support his staff during this time. 

As previously mentioned, Meyers had gone from cast member to writer, which isn’t typical. Numerous cast members start as writers and then receive promotions to the show’s cast. 

So that gives Meyers an edge over even Fey and Jost, who, like Meyers, held the Update-anchor and head writer position simultaneously. But neither Fey nor Jost were ever regular cast members and didn’t have that same relevant experience. 

On “Late Night,” it’s clear that Meyers has a genuine love of comedy. 

Countless of his segments feature his writing staff, so much so that his writer Amber Ruffin even got her own talk show on Peacock because of her positive reception while appearing on Meyers’s show. 

“Late Night with Seth Meyers” even has a recurring segment where former “SNL” cast members can perform sketches that never made it to air on Saturday nights. 

Interviews with Meyers have tip-toed around Michaels’s potential departure from the sketch show. For a while, Meyers had said he didn’t believe “SNL” should go on with Michaels. 

In recent years, with Michaels publicly saying the show should go on when he leaves, he hasn’t re-emphasized his former take.  

Instead, Meyers has said he doesn’t believe Michaels will ever leave “SNL” and his executive producer position. 

In an interview with Deadline, Meyers has doubled down on his belief that Michaels is irreplaceable to “SNL,” and while he’s flattered to hear rumors that he could do that job, it isn’t a job for him. 

So maybe I shouldn’t be arguing for Seth Meyers but asking him to step up. Because I’d say if this job is for anyone, it is only for him. 

He already works in 30 Rockefeller, and the current mass exodus of late-night hosts may signify that these shows won’t exist in the same way much longer. 

Meyers was a head writer in one of “SNL’s” brightest periods. He wrote Fey’s Sarah Palin sketches, oversaw The Lonely Island’s digital shorts and was the boss of a cast that has now been hailed as one of “SNL’s” best. 

His departure from the show led to one of the less favorable eras in its run, an era they are just beginning to shake. 

There is only one season until the “SNL 50,” where fans and haters of the sketch show will anxiously await Michaels’s decision to leave and appoint a successor. 

“Saturday Night Live” saw a considerable increase in quality in their self-proclaimed rebuilding year, and this season has seen a spike in viewership. 

As the remains of the previous era filter out and a new younger cast and writers shuffle in, bringing Seth Meyers in as Lorne Michaels leaves could be the last piece of the puzzle and, for lack of better phrasing, make “SNL” great again.

• Amy Poehler
• comedy
• Seth Meyers
• SNL
• Tina Fey